Give it a try.

February 16, 2018

She needs new running shoes. She’s growing like a weed and likes it when I say that. She skips across the parking lot, the low winter sun casting a long shadow, an exclamation point to her thrill. I told her about the shooting, stumbled my way through the conversation, finding zero words when she asked why. She wears the dress I made her that’s pretty much too small. I treasure that she wants to squeeze into it anyway.

She told me where she’d hide if there was a scary person in her school and my eyeballs ached with tears as I drove down the road with hundreds of other alive people going places. Even I hadn’t imagined where she’d hide. It’s self-protection to not imagine it. It’s unimaginable. She tells me all about the outfit she’ll wear tomorrow with her new shoes. She tells me about her planned April Fools joke: to offer lavender essential oil to friends at school but actually give them peace & calming. “They’ll get all mellow and sleepy!” She howls at her trick. She wrote a story yesterday called “The Ant and the Caterpillar” and another called “The Diary of a Coffee Bean.”

Last night she fell asleep on the floor atop her giant stuffed bear as we watched the Olympic women’s slalom races. She had asked Andy to swaddle her two favorite stuffies together, like she does every night. Like he does every night. The swaddle compresses the whisper thin fabric together, holds their insides inside, holds Giraffey’s neck upright. George wears our dead cat’s collar. They are definitely Real*:

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

She is transfixed by Laura Ingalls Wilder and Jane Goodall, trying to decide who to be for Halloween and who to be for her third grade living statue. She is reading books about both women, trying to decide if she’d like to be a writer or a naturalist when she grows up. She has filled two blank books with facts about them, trying to decide if it’s more interesting to live off the land or hang out with chimpanzees. She gets to aspire to be things.

If this was our story, which photo would the media pull in memoriam?

We all want this to be better. We all want to be a country with the tiniest bar on that graph that shows gun deaths per 1000 people. We all want our children to not get shot at school. To those who don’t want to consider a radical approach to gun fatalities in our country (yes. RADICAL.): why not give it a try? You might think it won’t work but lots of smart people think it will work… Why not give it a try? I am thinking of a thing I really value – a thing that is a right in our country and something that defines my culture. Access to public lands is what I have come up with. I know, I know, it’s different and Andy told me all the ways my analogy will be argued against but I’m trying to understand. So: if public land use in the US was 6x more lethal than Canada and 30x more lethal than Australia, France, Spain and pretty much everywhere…and I was asked, based on fact and research, to give up my access as I’ve known it in an effort to reduce murder rates and increase safety in public places like schools, churches and concerts in my country I WOULD DO IT. I would give it a try.

I walk my kids to school and we take our time. I’m ok if we’re so late we miss it all together. I’ve long thought about home schooling and now seems like a good time to start. I feel desperate. I want to start something. We just pulled tickets for Pearl Jam concerts in Missoula and Seattle and I wish I wasn’t thinking what if. When I get home, I fold my sourdough into boules, wash the breakfast dishes. I don’t want to listen to the news or music. I scrub the grout on my kitchen floor listening to the soundtrack of my brain. Rage, sadness, frustration, motivation, hope play on repeat. My knees press into the stone tile and I let the tears come, imagining that I can relieve a grieving childless mother, just a bit, by holding her pain in my body.

The conversation will continue and it’s easy to think the same cycle will happen again: where we stay the current course and wait for the next real life horror show. Unless we don’t stay the course. Unless we truly open up to ideas we grew up thinking were wrong or untenable. What if some of those ideas are right and tenable? What if. What if we reform our systems and policies. From healthcare to violence prevention strategy to education to guns. What if we change. Do we have the integrity and courage to give it a try? Hey, if it doesn’t work, we can try something else. That’s what I tell my kids.

We have to keep trying.

Things to do:

Respond to my post and other comments with respect, kindness and an open heart. I have my opinions and you have yours. This is a space to come together. Let’s learn and get shit done.

Vote. If you, like me, think corporate gun lobbyists are negatively influencing politics in our country, here is a list of elected officials who have received NRA funding to help inform your next vote: Thoughts and Prayers and NRA Funding

Read this informative piece by Nicholas Kristof that calls for us to approach gun deaths like we approached vehicular homicide a few decades ago (with great success) — as a public health issue: How to Reduce Shootings

15 Comments

So well said, Nici. I especially liked your ending with the things that ALL us moms (and grandmoms!) can do.

Thanks for all that you share.

Terri Holt

February 16, 2018 at 3:29 PM

I too am so raw with emotion, I cry at the drop of a hat, I did not get out of my pajamas all day yesterday, I am outraged with the killing of our children, I think of what if?, I am sick for the parents who are suffering with their losses, I am terrified that this will occur again. Yes my Burb, we have to keep trying. I love you

Tamara

February 16, 2018 at 8:33 PM

I do not post on social media much or on blogs at all, but this issue has caused me to start. I have a Kindergartener who was afraid to go to school after a lock down drill in the fall. We worked hard with her and her teachers to make her feel safe there again. But she wasn’t wrong to be scared. I am scared. I am not going to make it through the next 15 years of my kids in school if I have to worry every day about them getting shot while they are there. I am a big advocate for working at the local level for change but THIS ISSUE, is so very local and personal to everyone, but seems like we can only solve it at the federal level. And my only power of influence there is to vote and contact my reps… who are already on the same page as I am. So I just feel so impotent. Why is no one bringing the stakeholders – the NRA, the police, the teachers, the parents – to the same table to find a solution? Why aren’t these politicians donating those millions of NRA campaign contributions to fund more psychologists in schools if they really believe it is a mental health issue? Why isn’t the NRA figuring out what gun rights their members actually want, and which ones they are willing to give up (automatic rifles, bump stocks, etc) to keep our kids – their kids – safe? I am just struggling because I want to DO SOMETHING so I vote and call and write and donate… and nothing changes. Except now I have school aged children so it becomes even more local and personal to me… But I will keep trying. And maybe homeschooling. And crying for those mamas.

Anniken

February 16, 2018 at 11:05 PM

I live in norway and we dont have this gun problem, and I feel so sorry for all of you. I cant Even imagine the fear you have to live with. I dont get why people need guns ( except for hunting) and why some people dont want to make a small sacrifce to save kids. And what is going to happen mental wise with all the kids growing up in fear of being shot. I am so happy my kids are safe at school and can walk safe home from school if they like to. And i wish that every parent could feel this. Hopefully there will be changes for the better in the future. It is so hard to write all the feelings about this, but keep fighting. Kids are more important than guns.

Marsha Kern

February 17, 2018 at 4:35 AM

I am so sad with all of this, again I emailed my senators and representatives and even emailed the White House (something I have not done with #45 in office). I will do all I can to stop this. Thank you for all you do.

Thank you, Nici. Especially for the list of things we can do. I think there’s more momentum to get NRA-funded politicians out than ever before. I love the idea of the school walk out. I’m wondering if there’s a badass, well-spoken, seamstress-writer mom in Missoula who might run for office someday….? xo

Maria

February 18, 2018 at 3:57 PM

I’m right there with you Momma. And I agree, voting out NRA sponsored/supported politicians is going to be a super effective way to enforce change. We want the politicians to know that being aided by the NRA is a liability, not a boost. Until that happens, I think there won’t be any real change. I ache with you and I rage with you. This can’t go on.

Julia Gnegel

February 19, 2018 at 8:30 AM

Thank you. Thank you for putting into writing so eloquently and beautifully, what I’m feeling. Hold those girls tight.

Wendy

February 19, 2018 at 1:42 PM

This is beautiful. Thank you

Jennifer

February 20, 2018 at 8:23 AM

Beautifully worded truths. I especially LOVE your #1 thing to do. As simple as it is it seems to be one of the biggest hurdles to get past in today’s society. I teach my kids to speak kindly to all but all can’t seem to do the same…just because you think it, however true you believe it to be, does not mean you must say it out loud.
I’ve been searching for inspiration and ideas and want to share a quote that seems to fit this…Change means that what was before wasn’t perfect. People want things to be better. -Esther Dyson

I’ve been popping in to read your blog on and off since my children, now 6 and 2, were born. We home educate and I’ve always thought it would suit you down to the ground. Whether you make that choice or not I’m wishing you all the best in what must be a very difficult, stressful time for all parents in your country. We’re Scottish and we live not far from Dunblane, where a school shooting was the catalyst for banning guns in the UK. Even our police don’t routinely carry guns. And there hasn’t been a mass shooting since. I really hope that something similar can happen for the US – it’s horrific to see this same story repeating and repeating.

Much love to your family from mine,

Rachel x

Vicki Abbott

February 24, 2018 at 5:04 PM

I wish I’d had the foresight to move to Canada with my family years ago, when I could. Now it’s too late, they don’t want 80–year-olds, alas.

Vicki Abbott

February 24, 2018 at 5:05 PM

I truly wish I’d had the foresight to move to Canada with my family years ago, when I could. Now it’s too late, they don’t want 80–year-olds, alas.

Julia Jones

February 28, 2018 at 10:39 AM

Nici,

I have read your latest entry many times over. I even read it to my husband last nite, and cried reading it. I have followed you and your beautiful family for several years now. Your writing is incredibly, poignantly, heart-wrenchingly raw in this last post. I have no children, but felt every nuance in your passage. I am so glad that you are out there Nici; creating, sewing, loving, baking, and reminding your readers that the indelible pain and fleeting, remarkable joy is truly out there.

hello and welcome

I’m Nici (pronounced like Nikki) and I live in western Montana where I raise kids, vegetables and the roof.